Predictably, I denounced the murderous orgy. To my astonishment, some liberal voices of the Western world, always liberal with the blood of others, and liberal in defense of the aggressor, chose to concentrate on the “impropriety” of importing “Western decadence” to the pristine innocence of and polluting her cultural values…The core of the main discourse was nearly lost – the sanctity of human lives over and above the claims of any icons of faith, however universally revered. Through such distractions is impunity born, and the law of the mob and its manipulators tacitly endorsed by the appeasers of the world.

As we have been seeing for the past several weeks – impunity is born, and the law of the mob and its manipulators is tacitly endorsed by the appeasers of the world. The more violent the protests are, the more bashful mumbling there is about respect and sensitivity. I wonder – were there a lot of liberals wandering around German towns the day after Kristallnacht, saying everyone should be sensitive and respectful about Nazis’ feelings and beliefs?

The Danish government, thank goodness, declined to assume the burden of guilt by succumbing to the call to apologize for the conduct of one of its citizens, an individual who at no time was accused of being its official, representative or spokesman, but a free agent in his own cause, however censurable. The proposition that a government should act as monitor for individual choice within a free society is repugnant.

The Danish government has done some apologizing now, unfortunately – perhaps understandably, in the circs, but unfortunately.

Even more determinedly, however, must we reject the attempt of any sectional authority or quasi-state to foist its will on those who do not subscribe to the mandates of its beliefs, cultures and values.

That’s exactly what we must reject. We must not embrace it or applaud it or sympathize with it or march beside it, we must reject it. Will-foisting is held in oddly high esteem at the moment, and that is a catastrophe. That’s a giant step down the road to theocracy, and we must reject it.

What the atavists of religion have done is to expand the “territory of insult” into a limitless one…More to the point, they have raised questions about the followers of the Prophet and their understanding of the world’s complexity.

And not only their understanding of the world’s complexity, but their priorities, and their compassion – as Soyinka also notes.

Is it in the midst of this rampaging, racist obscenity called Darfur that the world is being invited to shift even its hazy focus, close down shop on vital concerns, wallow in an orgy of remorse, while the United Nations suspends its operations on behalf of traumatized humanity, all on account of some obscure cartoonist possessed by the Muse of irreverence? Clearly the world is askew, but not in the way some see it.

Spot on. Stonings and beheadings, fine; cartoons, the end of the world. Disrepute.

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4 Responses to “Disrepute”

Wole Soynika is clearly a past master at articulating righteous indignation and making civilised readers feel good about themselves – at any rate, I always feel better about myself after reading essays like these. But does righteous indignation really move the ball down the field? An analysis of what makes these assholes tick the way they do (rather than yet another demonstration of the fact that they are, indeed, assholes) might be more worthwhile.

Soyinka seems to have certain delusions as to the nature of Islam:

“In other words, it is time that Moslem leaders all over the world pronounced a fatwa against those who kill in the name of their faith, and turn every opportunity into a release of the psychopathic urge.

Wishful thinking, I fear. Reluctantly, for the umpteenth time, the argumentum ad hitlerum:

“In other words, it is time that Nazi leaders all over the world pronounced a Fuehrerbefehl against those who kill in the name of their racist beliefs, and turn every opportunity into a release of the psychopathic urge.”

Well, no doubt there were ‘moderate’ Nazi leaders then just as there are ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders today …

“were there a lot of liberals wandering around German towns the day after Kristallnacht…” etc.

I don’t think so, but listen to some of the things said by what I shall here politely term “non-interventionists” in the States around that time about not letting Jewish interests drag the U.S. into war. Some of it is not a million miles away. As soon as there was a Jewish reaction to Nazi anti-Jewish measures, that became something one could lock onto as the great Jewish aggression that justified anything else the Nazis wanted to do. In general, the Nazis did a lot of painting the German people as victims in order to justify measures taken in the other direction. It’s a rhetoric tactic that can be very effective and we’d have to be pretty naive to expect people to refrain from using it to further their agendas.

Good point. I hadn’t thought of that. Just think ‘Lindbergh’. Very good point. Especially since Lindbergh’s father was a good Minnesota progressive, and the son’s isolationism had some progressive roots along with the much more sinister stuff.

Lindbergh is certainly a name to remember in that context, though I was thinking of people like Van Horn Moseley, Coughlin and Rankin, the ones who kept respectable enough not to end up in the slammer like Pelley. People who are remembered, when at all, only for feats unconnected to aviation history… My point was that these folks were having their say around the time of Kristallnacht.